The Glitch

CHAPTER 1 - Elara

The elevator at Olympus Inc. smelled like one thousand different kinds of expensive colognes.

Contradictory, isn’t it? One would think wearing a luxury perfume would get you recognized, leaving a distinct trail for others to remember.

Instead, here in the heart of London’s financial district, every scent bled into the next—a nameless, stifling cloud of sandalwood and ambition that threatened to kill the nostrils of a girl just trying to reach her desk.

In my left hand, I clutched my homemade travel cup of soy milk and caramel-flavored coffee.

I was one of those girls, just with an eye on my wallet.

I wouldn’t dream of spending seven pounds a day at Starbucks, but you could bet your life I’d be brewing the same drink at home for eighty percent less.

While we climbed, I mentally reviewed the stack of security bypass requests I had fixed this morning. I wasn’t supposed to know about them, but the senior analysts were too busy playing golf on their new simulator to notice the glitches in the system.

I caught my reflection in the polished chrome of the elevator doors. My calico curls definitely needed a refresh, and my mascara was already slightly smudged. The quality of this drugstore makeup was lacking, to say the least.

“Damn it,” I whispered, brushing the dark smudge away with the back of my hand. Chin up, Elara. You are a professional. A professional who currently has a hole in her favorite sock, but a professional nonetheless.

The 9th floor—IT Security—was quickly becoming my sanctuary: a labyrinth of humming servers and glowing blue LEDs. Here, I could forget for a while my clumsy, tripping-on-her-own-shoelaces nature and just be the girl who really knows how to speak to machines.

“Morning, Elara! Did you manage to finish the decryption for the Sector 7 logs?”

Marcus, my supervisor. He didn’t even look up from his screen. He was a nice guy, but he treated me like a very smart golden retriever.

“Done and uploaded,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee. “Also optimized the firewall script. It was lagging by three milliseconds. It was… annoying me.”

Marcus chuckled. “Three milliseconds? You’re a freak, Guardian. A brilliant one, but a freak. Just stay in your lane today, okay? The Board has an extraordinary meeting. Vane is in the building.”

The name sent a phantom shiver down my spine. Sylas Vane.

He was the ghost that haunted these walls.

The man who had built an empire out of whispers and algorithms. No one below the 17th floor had ever seen him.

Rumors were he had a private elevator that took him from the Penthouse, where he stayed most days, to the office where he met with the Board on rare, tense occasions.

To us mere mortals, he was just a presence—a heavy, cold pressure that sat on the chest of everyone who worked here at Olympus.

—

Around 3:30 PM, the morning buzz had settled into a low, rhythmic hum. Marcus had disappeared into a "briefing" that inevitably involved a three-course lunch, leaving the floor to the interns and the office skeletons.

The quiet was shattered by the sharp click-clack of expensive heels on the parquet. I didn’t need to look up to know it was Vivienne Sparks. A senior analyst, five years older than me, and a woman who lived her life like she was auditioning for a reality show about corporate sharks.

“Guardian,” she drawled, leaning against my glass partition. Her manicure was a lethal shade of blood-red. “Marcus said you cleaned up the Sector 7 logs. I hope you didn’t leave any of your... eccentric fingerprints on the code. This goes straight to the higher-ups.”

I looked at her, my voice tighter than I intended. “It’s clean, Vivienne. Better than clean. It’s efficient.”

She leaned in. Her perfume—something that smelled like cold roses and old money—entered a collision course with my caramel coffee.

“Careful, Elara. In this building, being too smart is just as dangerous as being too stupid. Especially today. The air is... different. Vane is on the 17th. And when he’s here, the walls have ears. ”

She flashed a steel smile that didn't reach her eyes and sauntered away. She was the perfect Olympus employee: polished, obedient, and slightly terrifying.

With that venom in the air, the last couple of hours passed swiftly. I took my bag and my travel cup, anxious to just escape home.